;)
The Conversation -- February 10, 2024
The Report
I'm well-meaning, and I'm an elderly man, and I know what the hell I'm doing. I've been president and I put this country back on its feet. -- President Joe Biden, White House remarks, Thursday evening
Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury ... as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. -- Special Counsel Robert Hur, report
When the markets crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. -- Senator Joe Biden, to Katie Couric, 2008 ~~~
~~~ For a free subscription to Reality Chex, find two errors in Biden's 2008 remark. Yeah, fractured history is a Biden specialty. -- Marie
Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The White House on Friday called the special counsel's report into President Biden's handling of classified material politically motivated, escalating its attempts to discredit a document that characterized the president as elderly and forgetful. Vice President Kamala Harris suggested that the report was more of a political attack than an unbiased legal document. Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel's Office, said the report was 'inappropriate' and 'troubling.'...
"'The way the president's demeanor in that report was characterized could not be more wrong on the facts and clearly politically motivated,' Ms. Harris said in response to questions from reporters at the White House. She also said Mr. Biden had sat down for in-person interviews with the special counsel's office just a day after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. 'It was an intense moment for the commander in chief of the United States of America,' Ms. Harris said. 'He was in front of it all, coordinating and directing leaders who are in charge of America's national security.'"
Kierra Frazier of Politico: "Former Attorney General Eric Holder slammed Special Counsel Robert Hur's report that contained observations on President Joe Biden's memory. 'Special Counsel Hur report on Biden classified documents issues contains way too many gratuitous remarks and is flatly inconsistent with long standing DOJ traditions,' Holder said in a post on X early Friday morning. 'Had this report been subject to a normal DOJ review these remarks would undoubtedly have been excised.'... Tommy Vietor, a former Obama White House aide who now co-hosts Pod Save America, said the report was filled with 'ad hominem attacks' and was 'just a right-wing hit job from within Biden's own DOJ.' 'Hur, a lifelong Republican and creature of DC, didn't have a case against Biden, but he knew exactly how his swipes could hurt Biden politically,' said Jim Messina, Barack Obama's 2012 campaign manager."
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: Robert Hur's "extensive discussions of [President Biden's cognitive condition] were not merely gratuitous -- they constituted an egregious transgression of prosecutorial boundaries.... [Hur's] portrayal of Biden as a doddering old man is inconsistent with what I hear from those who have frequent interactions with him. But assuming its accuracy, the details go far beyond what is appropriate to explain the decision to decline prosecution, and far beyond Hur's brief.... Prosecutors are supposed to remain above the partisan fray, not embroiled in it.... A responsible prosecutor would have taken care to avoid what Hur has done, which is to let his report become a potent -- perhaps even lethal -- weapon in the coming campaign." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Yes, but if you credit Hur with writing, not a report, but a rambling, incoherent novel of the Look Homeward, Angel genre, then maybe it's a coming-of-aging story about a protagonist whom Hur decides to call "Joe Biden": ~~~
~~~ Marcy Wheeler: "Hur spent a year trying to find facts that would allow him to charge Joe Biden, charge a President, doing backflips with the evidence along the way, and then writing up a report that provides far more evidence about 40 year old documents covered by Speech and Debate than we'll ever learn about the stolen documents at Mar-a-Lago. This was never an ethical prosecutorial pursuit. It was always about writing a novel for a rabid audience." MB: This is one of Wheeler's long proofs, but Hur gives her a lot of material to work through.
Paul Campos in LG&$: "It's difficult to overstate what an absolutely astonishing own goal Merrick Garland scored by appointing Robert Hur to lead the Biden documents case.... So why did Merrick Garland do this incredibly stupid and reckless thing?... Because Robert Hur was Executive Editor of the Stanford Law Review, and clerked for the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and was a partner at Gibson Dunn, and somebody with that kind of impeccable legal pedigree wouldn't ever be a partisan hack, because if he was that would call into question the impeccable judgment of the other Elite Lawyers who anointed appointed him to those exalted offices, where Objective Legal Analysis always wins out over Partisan Political Considerations, because only the Very Best People get those kinds of jobs, because ... OK I can't do this any more.
"Merrick Garland should be fired immediately. He has one of the most important jobs in the United States, and he's absolutely terrible at it, which is a bad combination, especially when there's a little light sedition in the air.... This guy might as well be a Republican plant, but the really sad part is that I don't doubt for a second that he's as sincere as Linus in the pumpkin patch, waiting for the Spirit of the Law to bring presents to all the good little boys and girls...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Yesterday I wrote, "If Merrick Garland had any balls, he would make a public statement condemning the tenor of the so-called report." Apparently, President Biden thinks Garland should have gone further: ~~~
Jonathan Lemire & Sam Stein of Politico: "Joe Biden has told aides and outside advisers that Attorney General Merrick Garland did not do enough to rein in a special counsel report stating that the president had diminished mental faculties, according to two people close to the president, as White House frustration with the head of the Justice Department grows.... Biden and his closest advisers ... put part of the blame [for 'gratuitous and misleading' descriptions of Biden in the report] on Garland, who they say should have demanded edits to Hur's report, including around the descriptions of Biden's faltering memory.... Frustration within the White House at Garland has been growing steadily. Last year, Biden privately denounced how long the probe into his son was taking.... And the elder Biden, the people said, told ... confidants that Garland should not have eventually empowered a special counsel to look into his son, believing that he again was caving to outside pressure. In recent weeks, President Biden has grumbled to aides and advisers that had Garland moved sooner in his investigation into ... Donald Trump's election interference, a trial may already be underway or even have concluded, according to two people granted anonymity to discuss private matters." The story recount anonymous DOJ reactions. ~~~
~~~ Marie: This looks like one of those anonymously-sourced reports that the White House wants out there. "Confidants" don't rat on the President.
Adam Nagourney of the New York Times: "For veterans of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for president, [Thursday] brought back painful memories. The special counsel's report on the handling of classified documents by President Biden instantly recalled how James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, concluded his investigation of Clinton for her handling of classified documents when she was secretary of state.... Hur and Comey -- both Republicans investigating Democrats -- ... adorn[ed] their exonerations with harsh and damaging criticisms. Comey called Clinton 'extremely careless' in her actions. That fueled a flood of critical media coverage, including in The New York Times, and handed a cudgel to her opponent, Donald Trump. To this day, many Democrats blame Comey -- who went on to reopen briefly, and then shut down, that investigation 11 days before Election Day -- as well as the news media for her loss.... Hur ... appeared to offer a cudgel to Trump, and fueled fears among Democrats about Biden's fitness as a candidate."
David McAfee of the Raw Story: "Donald Trump Friday was hit with a stream of criticism for several verbal slip-ups at an event for the NRA in Pennsylvania. The former president slurred when saying the word 'subsidies,' said 'dino-dollars' instead of 'dollars'" and even said he doesn't like being frontpage news every time he 'said one word a little bit mispronunciation.' He also said that three years ago things were great, despite that being when Joe Biden became president, and he claimed twice there were no terror attacks during his tenure as president. He also said that Biden hasn't spoken in months despite him addressing press last night.... Trump also appeared to mistake what day it was, saying, 'If I wasn't here, I'd be having a nice Saturday afternoon.' He said that, of course, on a Friday. This one was also picked up by Biden-Harris HQ. 'It is Friday night,' the account wrote." ~~~
~~~ Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Marie: For a while yesterday (Friday), the New York Times' top online story, by Shane Goldmacher & others, was about this: "... at a last-minute news conference on Thursday night..., a visibly angry Mr. Biden made the exact type of verbal flub that has kept Democrats so nervous for months, mistakenly referring to the president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, as the 'president of Mexico' as he tried to address the latest developments in the war in Gaza." But Biden did not "try to address" developments in Gaza. Rather, he addressed them at length, correctly as far as I know, and off-the-cuff as this was not a topic slated to be discussed at the presser. The story is 35 paragraphs long (albeit the grafs are short). Nowhere in those 35 paragraphs do the reporters mention Biden's recitation of the status of Gaza, a series of remarks that make it abundantly clear Biden knew exactly what he was talking about & that he had full command of the facts. (The report does, however, refer again to "Mr. Biden's mix-up of Egypt and Mexico.") Biden did not "mix up" Egypt & Mexico. He spoke lucidly about Egypt's, not Mexico's, participation in the Gaza crisis. He misspoke. Biden has been famous for misspeaking/making gaffes for decades. This is not a sign of old age; it's a sign of a persistent Biden quirk. ~~~
~~~ The next day (being Friday), Donald Trump -- the leader of the Insurrectionist/Putin party -- gave a prepared address to the NRA, where he "bragged ... that he 'did nothing' about guns during his term in the White House despite 'great pressure.'" So Trump didn't know what day it was and Biden said "Mexico" when he meant "Egypt." Biden was not confused. Trump was confused. But that is not worthy of so much as a NYT mention even in a story about Trump's NRA speech (also linked below) co-authored by the reporter who wrote the lead NYT story Thursday on Hur's report on how addled Biden is. ~~~
~~~ Oh, wow. This morning's online top-o'-the-page NYT story: Peter Both-Sides Baker asks, "How Old Is Too Old to Be President? An Uncomfortable Question Arises Again." In fairness to Mr. Both-Sides, he does also address Trump's cognitive impairment: "Mr. Trump, too, will have to quell concerns about his cognitive health, something that was a serious enough worry while he was in office that many of his aides privately believed he was not fit." And the Times' lead editorial?: "The Challenges of an Aging President." ~~~
~~~ digby: Joe Biden "has always been a gaffe machine. Always. Now it's attributed to his age, a lie promulgated by the right and aided and abetted by the media jackels, as we saw at the press conference [Thursday] night.... Biden's mental faculties are fine. he's no different than he always was in that way, which is a garrulous, rambling speaker whose mouth gets ahead of his brain. But he looks old and that's what people are reacting to. It's not relevant because all you have to do is look at his presidency to see that he is perfectly capable of doing the job. The Republicans know that which is why they are relying almost exclusively on this attack to neutralize the obvious problem they have with a corrupt, half-wit rapist at the top of their ticket.... I don't know what to say about the political press. They are beyond hope I'm afraid. Their performance [Thursday] night was as bad as any I've ever seen."
Marie: In today's Comments, Ken W. posits that Biden has made more misstatements about history than has Trump. Maybe. But there's this:
Robert Draper & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "A lawyer for the chief witness against Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, said on Friday that the witness was cooperating with a House Ethics Committee investigation into whether Mr. Gaetz had sex with an underage girl while he was serving in Congress. Fritz Scheller, a lawyer for Mr. Gaetz's former friend and political ally Joel Greenberg, said he provided documents to the committee related to claims Mr. Greenberg has made about Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Greenberg previously told federal investigators that he had witnessed Mr. Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl. 'Mr. Greenberg has and will cooperate with any congressional request,' Mr. Scheller said in an email on Friday."
The Trials of Trump
"Selective Persecution." Michael Gold & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump ... blasted on Friday a special counsel's decision not to charge President Biden for his handling of classified material, accusing prosecutors of an unfair double standard. 'You know, look, if he's not going to be charged, that's up to them. But then I should not be charged,' Mr. Trump said at an event in Harrisburg, Pa. 'This is nothing more than selective persecution of Biden's political opponent: me.'... Mr. Trump said he had cooperated 'with the very hostile and unfriendly feds' more than Mr. Biden, a claim unsupported by any evidence.... Mr. Hur's report said the president fully cooperated with his investigation...."
Smith to Cannon: You Don't Know WTF You're Doing. Katherine Doyle of NBC News: "The special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump has asked the judge in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case to reconsider an order the government argues could identify more than two dozen witnesses and threaten their safety and testimony. Trump's lawyers have asked for unredacted documents to be turned over, which lawyers for special counsel Jack Smith want to block. In a 24-page filing in federal court in Florida, prosecutors for Smith said the court applied the wrong legal standard when U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the case, ordered the unsealing of materials.... Smith argued that making the filings public would disclose the identities of witnesses prepared to testify against Trump, including career civil servants and former Trump advisers, and what they said to federal investigators and the grand jury.... Trump has lashed out at 'the Gestapo' agents who conducted the 'raid,' and at the time of the search.... Cannon issued an order in response on Friday that delayed her initial decision." Emphasis added. ~~~
~~~ Joyce Vance said on MSNBC that "Smith may be on track to go to the 11th Circuit & request a writ of mandamus ordering Cannon to reverse her decision to expose these witnesses." ~~~
~~~ Zoe Richards of NBC News: "A Texas woman accused of making death threats against the judge presiding over ... Donald Trump]s classified documents case was sentenced Friday to three years in prison. Tiffani Shea Gish, of Houston, was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release, the Justice Department said in a news release.... According to court documents, Gish had admitted to federal marshals that she left messages for [Judge Aileen] Cannon, warning the judge that she was 'marked for assassination' and that she planned to shoot her in front of her family.... [Another] Texas woman was charged last year in connection with threats to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump's federal election interference case."
Brandi Buchman of Law & Crime: "In a new motion, special counsel Jack Smith shredded Donald Trump's latest attempt to indefinitely delay the classified documents case in Florida before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, urging the court to resist the former president's efforts to 'stop at nothing' to delay facing a jury. '... the tactics they deploy are relentless and misleading -- they will stop at nothing to stall the adjudication of the charges against them by a fair and impartial jury of citizens...,' Smith wrote in the 9-page brief filed in Florida late Thursday.... Trump's lawyers were either simply unprepared or were flatly ignoring court orders, according to the special counsel, and now, three months on, as Trump's team has filed requests to adjourn the case completely, they still come asking for more time to file pretrial documents.... Most offensive to the special counsel is Trump's attempt to dismiss the 40-some charges he faces for alleged illegal retention of sensitive and classified documents by attempting to advance an argument of 'presidential immunity.' The conduct charged took place after Trump left office, Smith wrote."
Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "A lawyer for one of ... Donald J. Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia election case suggested on Friday that the two prosecutors leading the case had lied about when their romantic relationship started. The defense lawyer, Ashleigh Merchant, said that a witness she hoped to put on the stand could testify that the romantic relationship between Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and the special prosecutor managing the Trump case, Nathan J. Wade, had begun before Ms. Willis hired Mr. Wade. That would contradict Mr. Wade, who said in a recent affidavit that his relationship with Ms. Willis had not begun until 2022, after his hiring. The affidavit was attached to a court filing made by Ms. Willis. Ms. Merchant identified the witness as Terrence Bradley, a lawyer who once worked in Mr. Wade's law firm and for a time served as Mr. Wade's divorce lawyer.... Ms. Merchant, on Friday, wrote that Mr. Bradley had 'obtained information about the relationship between Wade and Willis directly from Wade when Wade was not seeking legal advice from Bradley.'... [Judge] Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, has scheduled a hearing on the allegations for Thursday." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Seems to me that if Merchant can establish that Wade lied in an affidavit & if Willis did not correct the lie, McAfee should remove them both from the case.
Presidential Race
Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "A single day rarely encapsulates the fundamental issues of a presidential campaign, but the events of Thursday came close. Over a period of 12 hours, Election 2024 was vividly displayed as a choice between one candidate accused of criminal misconduct and the subversion of democracy, and another battling public concerns about his age and mental acuity.... After Thursday's events, it was also clear, as if it weren't before, that this campaign will be fought almost entirely on negative turf, a dispiriting prospect for an already sour electorate." MB: I don't often say this of Balz, but I do think he gets the basic points right, except for his claim that Biden "confused the president of Egypt with the president of Mexico."
Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "In a federal election complaint filed on Friday, the Democratic National Committee accused Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a super PAC backing his independent presidential bid of illegally coordinating on a $15 million petition drive intended to qualify him for the ballot in several states that could be crucial to President Biden's re-election prospects. The 11-page complaint to the Federal Election Commission described the arrangement as an in-kind contribution to Mr. Kennedy's campaign by the super PAC, American Values 2024, one that violated federal campaign finance laws and breached long-established financial barriers between candidates and outside groups." A CBS News report is here.
Wisconsin. Alyce McFadden & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "Elections officials in Wisconsin voted that the Green Party is eligible to appear on presidential election ballots, a move that could affect the result in a critical battleground state where the winner has been decided by narrow margins. At a meeting of the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday, the commissioners voted unanimously to grant the party's petition, so long as the final paperwork requirements are met. Wisconsin state law guarantees ballot access to parties that receive 1 percent of total votes in a previous election and submit a petition to the elections commission.... Recent polls suggest a close race between President Biden and ... Donald J. Trump.... In 2016, the Green Party candidate Jill Stein won just more than 31,000 votes in Wisconsin, a total that left her fourth in the state but was more than the difference in votes between ... Hillary Clinton and Mr. Trump, who won by a margin of less than 1 percent and took all ten of the state's electoral delegates. In the 2020 presidential election, no Green Party candidate appeared on ballots in Wisconsin. Mr. Biden won the state by less than 1 percent. Ms. Stein has announced that she will seek the Green Party's nomination again this year." ~~~
~~~ Marie: If Green party members care about this country, they will select "None of the Above" and bow out of battleground contests.
News About the Terrible Biden Economy. Edward Moreno & Joe Rennison of the New York Times: "Stocks rose on Friday, with the S&P 500 index closing above 5,000 for the first time amid a rally fueled by better-than-expected earnings reports. The move comes less than a month after the index returned to record territory, surpassing a high set in January 2022. The benchmark, which tracks the stock performance of the largest companies in America, is the foundation of many portfolios and retirement plans and is the most common gauge of sentiment on Wall Street. The rally in the stock market has come with inflation cooling, corporate profits growing and lower borrowing costs on the horizon." The NBC News report is here. ~~~
~~~ Jeff Cox of CNBC: "The prices consumers pay in the marketplace rose at an even slower pace than originally reported, according to closely watched revisions the government released Friday. Updates to the consumer price index showed that the broad basket of goods and services measured increased 0.2% on the month, less than the originally reported 0.3%, the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics said. While the change is only modest, it helped confirm that inflation was moderating as 2023 ended, giving more leeway to the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates later this year."
Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "An academic journal publisher this week retracted two studies that were cited by a federal judge in Texas last year when he ruled that the abortion pill mifepristone should be taken off the market. Most of the authors of the studies are doctors and researchers affiliated with anti-abortion groups, and their reports suggested that medication abortion causes dangerous complications, contradicting the widespread evidence that abortion pills are safe. The lawsuit in which the studies were cited will be heard by the Supreme Court in March.... The publisher, Sage Journals, said it had asked two independent experts to evaluate the studies, published in 2021 and 2022 in the journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology, after a reader raised concerns. Sage said both experts had 'identified fundamental problems with the study design and methodology, unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions, material errors in the authors' analysis of the data, and misleading presentations of the data that, in their opinions, demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor and invalidate the authors' conclusions in whole or in part.'"
Marie: It's fair to say the odds were mighty low that I would link a Daily Mail column by Boris Johnson. But here ya go: ~~~
~~~ Boris Johnson in the Daily Mail: "Putin's interview with his fawning stooge Tucker Carlson was straight out of Hitler's playbook.... In his fawning, guffawing, slack-jawed happiness at having a ‘scoop’, [Carlson] betrayed his viewers and listeners around the world. He didn’t ask tough questions.... Not once did he even try to dam the flow of lies from Putin. Instead he gasped fanboyishly at Putin’s alleged erudition, boneheadedly accepting the Russian leader’s mixture of semi-masticated Wikipedia and outright falsehood...."
~~~~~~~~~~
Maryland Senate Race. Michael Bend of the New York Times: “Larry Hogan, the popular Republican former governor of Maryland, announced on Friday that he would run for the state’s open Senate seat, a surprising move that immediately made the state a top battleground for control of the chamber.... Mr. Hogan has been one of his party’s most vocal critics of ... Donald J. Trump and has endorsed former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina for the Republican nomination.... Senator Steve Daines, a Montana Republican and the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, welcomed Mr. Hogan into the race....”
~~~~~~~~~~
Israel/Palestine, et al.
Reid Epstein & Erica Green of the New York Times: “In a closed-door meeting with Arab American leaders in Michigan this week, one of President Biden’s top foreign policy aides acknowledged mistakes in the administration’s response to the war in Gaza, saying he did not have 'any confidence' that Israel’s government was willing to take 'meaningful steps' toward Palestinian statehood.... The remarks came after months of public and private admonitions from the Biden administration for Israel to take a more surgical approach in a conflict that has killed more than 27,000 Palestinians, according to health authorities in Gaza.... The Biden aide, Jon Finer, a deputy national security adviser, offered some of the administration’s clearest expressions of regret for what he called 'missteps' it had made from the beginning of the violence, and he pledged that it would do better.”
, et al., of the New York Times: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli military to draw up plans to evacuate Rafah, a Gazan city packed with more than a million people, in advance of an expected ground offensive that has set off international alarm.... Many civilians in Rafah are sheltering in rickety tents made of plastic and wood and say there is nowhere left in Gaza to avoid Israeli shelling.... On Friday, UNICEF warned against any escalation in Rafah, where, it said, more than 600,000 children and their families had been displaced.”
Ukraine, et al.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs & David Sanger of the New York Times: “President Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany used a meeting at the Oval Office on Friday to pressure Congress to pass billions more in aid for Ukraine, as legislative dysfunction and opposition among some Republicans have left the critical package in limbo. 'Hopefully Congress, the House, will follow you and make a decision on giving the necessary support because without the support of the United States and without the support of European states, Ukraine will not have a chance to defend its own country,' Mr. Scholz said in opening remarks before their meeting. Mr. Biden had a more blunt assessment of the congressional gridlock. 'The failure of the United States Congress, if it occurs, not to support Ukraine is close to criminal neglect,' Mr. Biden said. 'It is outrageous.'” ~~~
~~~ Before Likely Senate Passage, GOP Senators Demand Stunt Amendments. Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: “The long-stalled emergency national security package to send aid to Ukraine and Israel is back on track in the Senate and headed toward passage within days — but not before Republican senators try to take a few partisan shots at the legislation. The senators are slowing progress on the $95 billion measure as they seek votes on proposed revisions, particularly concerning border security — despite having voted this week to kill a version of the bill that included a bipartisan deal to crack down on immigration.... [Senate Republicans] are settling for staging a series of votes that aim to show the right-wing Republican base, the G.O.P.-led House and ... Donald J. Trump that they tried to muscle through tough new border policies — and blame Democrats for blocking them. Senators planned a rare weekend session to work through the bill, with a critical vote on the legislation expected Sunday. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and minority leader who has been a vocal champion of aiding Ukraine in its war against Russian aggression, urged his colleagues to either fall in line behind the bill or at least allow it to advance to a final vote.” The Hill's report is here.
U.K. Your Royal Gossip Fix, Ctd. Mark Landl of the New York Times: “Prince Harry has settled his privacy claims against a British tabloid publisher, his lawyer told a London court on Friday, two months after a judge found the publisher guilty of 'widespread and habitual' hacking of the prince’s cellphone. The settlement with Mirror Group Newspapers — which his lawyer said would amount to at least 400,000 pounds, or $504,000 — brings to an end one battle in Harry’s long-running war against the press over its intrusive coverage of his private life.... In addition to paying for the costs of the case, the Mirror Group would pay additional “significant” damages, the prince’s lawyer, David Sherborne, said.... In his statement, Harry singled out Piers Morgan, a prominent TV personality and a former editor of The Daily Mirror, saying Mr. Morgan 'knew perfectly well what was going on.' Mr. Morgan’s 'contempt for the court’s ruling and his continued attacks ever since demonstrate why it was so important to obtain a clear and detailed judgment,' Harry said.”
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Reader Comments (14)
This disgusting episode of character assassination by the right-wing flunkie given that opportunity by a stupid, stupid, stupid idiot, Creampuff Casper Milquetoast Garland, should put a hard no on any future Democrats trusting that Republicans will be honest and fair. You can’t trust a single one.
Obama tried it with Comey. Garland tried it with this Hur asshole. They are untrustworthy partisan fucks, every last one. Even Mueller ended up being a huge waste of time. Instead of a finding of fact, to indict or not to indict, Hur wrote an opinion piece that could have been invented by any hyper partisan Fox liar. Trying to be fair with these people always, always, always screws Democrats, and the truth.
No Republican would ever, in a million years, hire a Democrat for such a sensitive job. Not because they’d be afraid the Democrat would lie, but because it’s far more likely they’d tell the truth and not sugar coat or fudge the facts. They’d give the job to a reliable hack.
Like THIS FUCKING HUR GUY!
But does Merrick Garland get this??? No! So HE GIVES THE JOB TO A RELIABLE REPUBLICAN HACK!! The same Hur guy that Republicans would trust to give them an edge.
Jesus fucking A Christ!
If Biden survives this, he had better send this POS packing and get himself a decent AG.
And no more of this “Oh we’ll hire a Republican so we can show how non-partisan we are.” Fuck that. None of them can be trusted. Would you hire Hannibal Lecter as your cook?
Garland did.
And he served roast Biden, with a nice Chianti.
Not that the argument will overawe the masses (who have no sense of history at all), but I'd guess Biden's fractured historical knowledge far exceeds that of the Pretender, who believes history began when he was born and all that happened since was designed to serve him.
After digesting all the latest news that's fit to print, I'm more than ever
a believer in what Douglas Adams claimed (The Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Galaxy).
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly
what the Universe is for, and why it is here, it will instantly disappear
and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
Douglas Adams.
"Democrats' Worries Grow Over Biden's Memory Lapses" reads the WAPO headline.
Must be nice to be one of the "What, me worry?" MAGAs, who apparently have no concern whatsoever about the Pretender's frequent stumbles.
If they were worried, I'm sure the WAPO would blazon the headline.
Politicians often are wrong about history, but are very, very sure of themselves.
I guess that telling of FDR taking to the TV before it was in common use for broadcasts and before he was elected to office isn't much different than praising the army troops who took over the airports in the Revolutionary War.
Michael Tomasky
"Republicans today are consumed by this primal need for immediate gratification. They’re the party of the dopamine rush. Go read an article about the brain, and you’ll learn in five minutes that dopamine helps regulate pleasure, and pleasure is great, but too much dopamine leads to delusions, hallucinations, schizophrenia, psychosis. The entire party has a massive and collective mental disorder, a severe chemical imbalance in what remains of its collective brain, which explains why it kneels so slavishly before a psychotic man with the emotional regulation of a 5-year-old."
Top of the NYT online page:
"How Old is Too Old to be President? An Uncomfortable Question Arises Again."
Top Four of the Opinion section farther down the page:
*The Challenges of an Aging President -- Editorial Board
*Mr. President, Ditch the Stealth About Health -- Dowd
*The Question is Not if Biden Should Step Aside. It's How -- Douthat
*Democrats Can No Longer Stay Silent About Biden -- Stephens
What the FUCK!!!
BUT THE EMAILS!!
Maybe everyone is having some problems these days. All these reporters seem to have forgotten that they write for prestigious world renowned Newspapers and not the National Enquirer.
Why is no one questioning Hur's faculties after reading the inconsistent alternafacts Breitbart novel he turned in instead of a fact based DOJ report on his year long "investigation". We are so used to the right wing drivel that most of us don't bat an eyelash anymore when it hits us in the face.
"Congressman Maxwell Frost: Biden being old doesn’t sound like breaking news to me. What sounds like news to me is millions of jobs created, wages up, inflation down, capping insulin costs, the first ever Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and record climate investments."
NBC News
"WASHINGTON — Newly unearthed footage from Jan. 6, 2021, appears to show a rioter — a man identified in an NBC News story nearly two years ago — firing a gun into the air outside the Capitol during the attack.
Online sleuths who have aided in hundreds of Jan. 6 prosecutions say he is the same man they identified to the FBI who is currently individual No. 200 on the bureau’s Capitol Violence page, which he first appeared on three years ago. Videos and photographs from the Capitol on Jan. 6 showed him with what appears to be a gun in his waistband. As NBC News previously reported, that man, John Emanuel Banuelos, told Salt Lake City police that he was at the Capitol and had been captured on film with a gun. “I was in the D.C. riots,” he told the investigators, according to a police transcript. “I’m the one in the video with the gun right here.”
Banuelos has not been arrested or charged in connection with Jan. 6; the Salt Lake City police had arrested him in connection with the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Christopher Thomas Senn in a park on July 4, 2021.
“Man, should I just tell the FBI to come get me or what?” he asked Salt Lake City police officers, according to a police transcript. Weeks later, Banuelos called an investigator with the department and “talked about going where Donald Trump sent him,” apparently referencing the Capitol, according to a police record. The Salt Lake City DA’s office did not pursue a case against Banuelos, who claimed self-defense in Senn’s death."
@RAS: The Banuelos case sounds like something Merrick Garland is considering pursuing. Be patient.
Marie's exhortation to RAS to "Be patient" sounds like all of us during Obama's administration, when we expected the banks to be ground into pieces, ditto other industries like realty and mortgage places...We were assured Obama was "playing the long game" and "be paitient" and so we were. Nothing happened. Mitch McConnell ate him for breakfast. I am not dumping on Obama, the utmost nice guy in forgiving of bad actors. I loved Obama. Still do. But this high-powered "lynching" of Biden feels so familiar. The Dems have not spoken ill of the insane MSM very often, and they should. The opinions should be front and center. I can no longer bear hearing the s***show all of this has become. I can't think of forgiving any of them. For a time, I wrote headlines in my day job, and I knew that some should be head-turning, or for luring in a reader. They should not be lies. Either actual or by omission. The ones listed by NiskyGuy are both. And why the hell does "being fair" have to rule everything our side does? I'm sure Garland felt that he must be fair in everything, otherwise, (gasp) there would be hell to pay if they glombed on to a "secret" report not favorable to Biden. Garland is a bloody scaredycat. A year? This hack took a year? Yes, compared to Mueller he is impulsive, but neither "investigator" was fair. What a s***show.
@Jeanne: Uh, thanks, I guess, for reminding us about Obama and the banks. And we can't forget Turbo Tax Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. I'm not sure which of those two reprobates is most responsible for leading Obama down the primrose path, but the primrose path it was, and the end of it loomed a great loch filled with a squad of giant vampire squid.
I'll admit there is a line between (a) coming down so hard on bankers that you further harm the teetering economy and (b) coming down hard enough on bankers so they get away with a good deal less "legal" theft & profiteering (and taxpayer bailouts). But President Obama, time and time again, landed on the wrong side of that line. I remember when a roomful of bankers was in a White House meeting with Obama, and the bankers so looked down their noses at Obama that you got the feeling they thought of him as the temporary Black waiter there to serve them. Obama reminded them, "I'm the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks." He should have got out of the way a bit and let those pitchforks draw a little blood. But he never did.
As you write, Democrats play by Marquess of Queensberry rules, and if they get even close to a Republican's belt, there is a chorus of GOP outrage & calls for the ref to end the fight. Still demanding that Democrats play like gentlemen, Republicans fight back like the gangs of New York. Democrats must at least outfit themselves with brass knuckles. A very few Democrats do, and the ones who do are very good at it.